Hypersonic weapons have been under development for decades and have taken on an almost mythical quality because their main selling points of speed and manoeuvrability make them seem unstoppable. Recently, Russian president Vladimir Putin has been the man putting the hype into hypersonic, claiming that Russia has perfected the Avangard …
Can Iran Stop U.S. Bunker Buster Bombs?
Ever since we learned to fight we have striven to protect our most important places but with modern weapons is there a safe place anymore? The most secure places we could build, hardened secure and even nuclear bunkers are now vulnerable to bunker-busting weapons that can go clean through 20 …
Why is NASA Throwing Away Reusable Engines?
Artimis 1 finally took off for the moon on 16th November 2022 but this new rocket which is the most powerful to make it into space is not as new as you would think. The four main engines that power the core stage with the help of two massive solid …
How Pratt & Whitney Changed Aviation
When the chief engineer for the German aero maker Blohm and Voss got hold of a recovered Pratt and Whitney R-2800 and saw that the lapping of the two halves for the crankcase was machined with such great precision that it not only didn’t need a sealing gasket, it also …
How One Camera Changed NASA and How We Saw the World
Without doubt some of the most stunning and famous photos ever taken came from the Apollo missions and without them they wouldn’t have had the same public support or iconic stature that they have today and nearly all of the were taken by one make of camera. But those pictures …
How Long Could You Survive in a Black Hole?
Imagine we are at some point in future on a mission to study black holes and orbiting near the photon sphere, an area just far enough away where photons of light travel fast enough to settle into an orbit and don’t get pulled into the event horizon. However, through no …
Telstar 1 – The Satellite That Changed the World
I may look like a prototype for the Death Star but this 77kg satellite from 60 years ago changed the world in a very much more real way. This is Telstar 1, the world’s first privately funded active communications satellite to be used by public broadcasters to transmit telephone, television …
Bell Labs – The Company that Invented the Future
To some it was the ideas factory, to others it was the most influential institution of its kind in the world and in many ways has created much of the technology that is the bedrock of our modern world. With 9 Nobel prize winners, whose work has been part of …
Ferdinand Porsche – A Man ahead of His Time
Think of the name Porsche and invariably you’ll think of sports cars, the boxter, Taycan and others but ultimately 911, the car which put the modern day Porsche name on the map but the man who founded the brand in 1931 Ferdinand Porsche already had a long and varied history …
How to make Roads with Nukes – Nuclear explosions For Peace
Peaceful nuclear explosions, that sounds like a contradiction in terms, especially in these times of heightened tension and nuclear sabre-rattling. But there was time when back in the 50s, 60s and even up to the late 80s when the explosive power of a nuclear weapon was looked at in a …